


Liber Avonis

by Ichiro



Category: Blake's 7
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-07
Updated: 2014-05-07
Packaged: 2018-01-23 22:02:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1581038
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ichiro/pseuds/Ichiro
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Light and airy, like a fairy<br/>Cally spins a pirouette<br/>Sweet breaths of mind in starlight twined<br/>She cannot see the future yet</p>
            </blockquote>





	Liber Avonis

******************

**LIBER AVONIS**

  
******************  
  
  
 **THE DREAM OF AVON**  
  
Cally: Avon, tell us what you dreamt about last night.  
  
Avon: Last night when I closed my eyes it seemed to me that I was borne up by winds into a region composed of clouds and light. There was no sound. As I was borne progressively higher it became harder for me to breathe, until soon I found that there was no air at all and it was better for me to suspend my breathing. At first, this made me dizzy and left me with a sense of undirected urgency, as if there was some important task to be performed somewhere for people which I could not remember and for which I did not have the tools, but in time the feeling left me and I came not to realise that I was not breathing just as we never realise we breathe until our breathing is disturbed or interrupted. When I reached the summit of my journey, I stood as if on a pinnacle of cloud and the obscurity beneath me cleared away. I could see the countries of the earth stretched below me, the globe reaching in all directions so that when I looked west out over the Pacific I could see so far as to make out in the far distance the peak I myself stood and rested upon and the parting of the hairs on the back of my head as I stood there. The countries of the earth were marked between with red lines and the people walking in the cities traced complicated patterns with their progress. I sat down and stared at my shoes until the vision changed. Then I was shown the tiers of the Foundation and the etchings on the hearts of all those concerned in it, from the rough hessian of the lowliest black-clad guards to the silk of the planetary governers. These weaves and wefts of feeling and intention were arranged in a regimented pyramid of order with its base on earth that stretched out from where I viewed to the end of the galaxy. Everyone was in his proper place, guard to section commander to marshal in the field. At the tip of that organisation was Servalan and I was able to see all of her fine details, the whorls and lines engraved on the matter of her cold grey brain. I had a huge hard-on but reached out with my Berol ink marker and scribbled across the chart. After this, the visions became less co-ordinated. I was shown many things, including an apple, a man dying of leprosy, an organ bank, a storm on Mars, the detailed workings of a starship engine; I rejected them all as I knew them already. When that was finished I was given a gun and was told to smash the Federation and I did not. Then I was given a gun and was told to shoot myself and I did not, and I was told to shoot what I loved the best, and this time I did not either. Then there was a sound like a thunderclap and a great chime in space, and the three Boddhisattvas of the Solar System came towards me on a carpet of rose petals and bottle tops with their heads bowed, bringing gifts. They offered me margipans, framengiratis, mastodemeticus and I refused them all. They remained kneeling at my feet. There was a great rafi in heaven, a sellering uls-piraf of juvenile entities, gomandering, pariodontical. I stood as these things scattered around me. Semantering in usk, the sky became che with len blue oriovasm. Lors dan ye sing coravi, emmaterincus was fielded las perefti as I sank olomesteriadoletavian. Gestonriotenciravus emmenterincissiumatisdelfopaxriacomterinditus. Flights of angels were manifest in the heights. Yaliaveretriansemanitoribelitovianimusterixcorumlaberiotelacetorix. Elternasmiorganolora. Then the sky split, and Buddha appeared, stretching out his chriodont right hand, and he praised my steadfastness and my eyes, saying that I had achieved grace by my actions because I did not seek to achieve, merely to act. In the motion lies the salvation, in the second and in the splitting of the second we enter infinity. To seek for aims is to tie ourselves forever to an unsatisfactory world. The work is itself. I was showered with rose petals from above.

 

Cally: Thank you, Avon. You are very wise.

Avon: That was the end of my vision and then I woke up.

* * *

**AVON SUPERBUS**

A syphilitic jaguar  
The Federation goes to Hell.  
Vila lies drunken by the bar:  
Adrenalin and soma gel.

A panther running like a hare  
A cougar sitting on a bench.  
Computers take me everywhere;  
A gun, a teleport: content.

The perfume of a cheap cigar  
Pervades the teleport like hate.  
My red wine tastes like vinegar.  
I think I'm putting on some weight.

* * *

Towards outer space the disintegrators  
Towards old Earth the red exhaust  
Avon's anger is infinite  
Red red glows the atomic Pile  
Avon's anger is infinite

Towards outer space the triple nacelles  
Towards old Earth the jetting exhaust  
Avon's wrath is infinite  
Blue blue sparks the dilithium crystal  
Avon's wrath is infinite

Towards outer space the long-range space detectors  
Towards old earth the globe of the exhaust  
Avon's rage is infinite  
White white at the heart of the static core  
Avon's wrath is infinite

* * *

**YOUNG AVON**

Back when Avon thought appearance was important  
He slicked those goat-black locks with Hydronic Massagel,  
A styling, fortifying hair-preparation rich in vitamins.

He studied hard at positronic 4-D calculus  
And got a job in some investment house  
In computer support. These were his days to remember.

A Federation indefense-team routine info-gathering  
Sent him a security questionnaire. Answering 27c  
What do you want from life, he sense-impressed, “To be remembered.”

* * *

**THE DEATH OF VILA**  
 _A Passion Play_

Posniak: Come on, Thief. Have you got that box open yet?

Vila: My fingers are cold.

Posniak: We're all cold. There's nowhere on this planet that isn't cold. Have you opened it yet?

Vila: No.

_He limps up to her, picking his way over the icy stalagmites. His feeble, thinker's arms are drawn up, his magic fingers near his chin, as if he were a squirrel or praying. He's right: they are almost frozen into inactivity._

Vila: Posniak, what are you looking out at.

Posniak: I want to see if Kortone or Merril are back.

Vila: There's no point in waiting. You'll know when they've come. There's nothing else out there that could. There's nothing but ice and us. There's cheerful. A planet, one woman, two murderers and a thief with nothing to steal. I tell you, when I die here and go to Hell I won't notice because it'll still seem to be the same place.

Posniak: A thief with something to do. Get back to that box. You don't want us to have hijacked that space liner for nothing.

Vila: He really is very close to breaking. My hands!

_Posniak draws her Actium Blaster. Vila flinches back. She sets a dial, then fires a low intensity beam at the largest stalagmite available, a dwarf mountain near the cave entrance. It cracks and hisses with steam. The beam keeps up until the stalagmite is glowing a dull red. Vila puts his hands out to it, then gradually brings them in to touch it as the heat wears out of it. He shouts and sighs._

Vila: Thanks. You're all heart.

Posniak: I shouldn't have done that. You'll get chilblains.

Vila: Chilblains!

_Posniak is a harsh and ignorant woman, but not stupid. She is also slowly becoming too old to be what she impresses as now: a star-wise gunslinger in a skin-tight scarlet catsuit, invisibly thermal, which shines slickly purple in the ill light which accompanies the blizzard into the cave. Her hair is bouffant and blonde. Dusty Springfield was more enduring than she knew._

Posniak: You'll get worse than chilblains if you don't do what Merril says. You've got your tools, haven't you? You can at least give him the satisfaction.

Vila: Men like Merril are never satisfied with anything, haven't you noticed that, Posniak? You give them what you want and it only enrages them more because you didn't give it them faster.

Posniak: Oh yes.

Vila: You're just my type, you know? I've always had an admiration for strong women, I think it comes from my mother, she used to shave and out-wrestle my father. I think he was my father. I just want to say, you know, if it comes down to it, I'll protect you. From Merril. And Kortone. And from them both. It becomes lonely on these ice-planets.

Posniak: _Amused, as he'd hoped._ You'll protect me? I can't say I'll say the same for you.

Vila: Ah well. I'll go and look at that box again.

_He limps back into the cave._

Posniak: _Scornfully, under her breath._ Two murderers, a thief and me.

_She waits._

Vila: _Calls from the back of the cave._

There's no point in this, you know.

I said there's no point in this.

It's not as if we can spend the money here.

Posniak: The point is that Merril wants the job done. Can you do it?

Vila: Can I do it! Can I do it? It's a Securi-Vault three but it's not standard. _He reappears, now wearing huge gloves._ Triple-data locking, internal flanges supporting cobalt bolts, full-size micro-memory for the internal code so you can't run a trace on the entry sequence without a megacomputer.

Posniak: Can you do it?

Vila: And here's an irony, it's heat-sealed. Don't you think that's ironic? In this place? You don't go in much for irony, do you? You're more of a slapstick girl. Not that I've got anything against slapstick.

Posniak: I don't understand half the things you say.

Vila: Neither do I. Warm the rock up again.

Posniak: No. How can you work in those gloves.

Vila: I can't. I can't work without them either, it's too cold. I want something to eat.

_He approaches her, for the first time with the hint of menace, with the sense that his frame is weak but he is larger than her. Or perhaps it is an illusion of his stance against the cold. Posniak stiffens._

Warm up the rock.

Posniak: No. Look: it's Merril and Kortone.

Vila: I've been working, you'll vouch for that.

_He dashes back to the deep inside of the cave._

_Enter Merril and Kortone. They are brutes. Merril is thin and with a wild look in his eyes, Kortone neat despite the rime of frost, tall, square, a professional and dangerous killer. They are both dressed in space survivals and carrying salvaged kit._

Merril: That's it. That's all we could find.

_He chucks what he has into the cavern: some large cartons in a plastic web or belt, four flat sheets of metal, a long arrangement of poles with a control box at one end. Kortone is less laden._

The crash threw some stuff out through the cockpit windows and that's escaped the explosion but it's scattered all over the place. We've got what we could locate. We can try further afield tomorrow.

Kortone: We don't know whether the blizzards here stop at night or whether it covers stuff or leaves it exposed. I'm not hopeful.

Posniak: Nothing to build a fire?

Kortone: Fire doesn't exist in this place.

Posniak: We'll die in here tonight, Kortone.

Kortone: Maybe.

Merril: Is the box open? Where's the thief?

Kortone: But we did get this.

Posniak: A dead-man's doorstop! When do we use it?

Kortone: Not now. It's powered up but it's clear there's only one shot. The moon's curve over this planet is sixteen hours -

Posniak: You saw that in the crew cockpit?

Kortone: Yes. We passed it coming down. I think it'll be over us in the morning. We'll signal in the morning.

Merril: Do you hear that? We're right by the interstellar routes here. We're saved. We just have to wait to morning.

Posniak: Will they come down for us?

Merril: They'll have to. With what we've got. Where is it? I want to see my gains.

_He goes to the back of the cave._

Thief? Thief? Come out or I'll kill you.

Vila: The funny thing is, you mean it, don't you? It's not meant to be a joke.

Merril: Where is my money?

Vila: Ah, well, I've been looking at the box. Is there anything to eat? Did you get anything to eat?

Merril: The box.

Vila: I can't work if I'm hungry. My eyes go blurred. It's like being drunk but the hangover comes first -

_Merril roars with rage._

Posniak: The dead-man's doorstop survived the wreck, Vila. We'll be able to bounce a subspace wave off the moon. Rescue could only be a day away.

Vila: I know what the lock is. Open it wrong, it'll destroy the insides. It's a Securi-Vault three but it's not standard. Triple-data blocking, flanged memory with internal cobalt in infernal code, full-size bolt so you can't run a race on entering without a rooter. Honestly. Long job.

Merril: Have you got one? A rooter?

Vila: A what?

Merril: A rooter? Can you do the job? You can get at my money?

Vila: Yes, yes, oh yes I can.

Merril: Good.

Vila: Is there any food?

Kortone: On the floor.

_Vila investigates the cartons in the webbing. He draws one out._

Vila: Vacuum packs. Self-heating. You know what they say, they don't taste of anything, but I can't feel anything so who's complaining?

Kortone: Get some ready. You, me, the girl, Merril.

Merril: Very close We know how many there are. Long job?

Vila: What?

Merril: My box.

Kortone: Our box.

Posniak: All our box. We all fought, Merril. All of us.

Merril: Long job, Vila?

Vila: Oh yes. All night.

Merril: We have all night. I want to see a golden morning.

_Fast dissolve. Later, that same evening, after the vacuum meal, Kortone and Merril are playing the Yogi Bear Space Race game. Merril is winning. An ultra-vi from the wreck has been placed among the stalagmites for heat. Vila is by it, with his huge gloves on. He his tampering with one of the empty vacuum packs. Posniak comes up to him._

Posniak: You don't want to sit too close to that thing. The radiation isn't good. What are you doing.

Vila: They have to build these things to last, you know. It could be fifty years, send them up in a space rocket, out among the planets, fifty years until you crash on the moon and need something fresh and hot. They put a lot of power into these batteries. _He pokes around with a probe, clumsily_. Here.

_He slips off his gloves and hands them to her._

Only a loan, mind.

_He puts the empty vacuum packs on his hands. Posniak bursts out laughing. Merril and Kortone look up, annoyed._

Vila: What? It keeps my hands warm. I can feel them cooking already.

Posniak: I'll say this for you, you know some dodges.

Vila: _Speaking very low and fast_ That box is my death, Posniak. You know that. Listen, if it's just the money, there'll be enough for us all. There's enough money in that box to last four reasonable people and their pleasures for the rest of their lives. But reasonable people don't steal money like that in the first place. Some people don't know when to stop. And it's not just the money any more. It's survival.

Posniak: Your predictions. You're getting a bit previous now.

Vila: Do you think so?

_Behind them, Kortone utters a single bark of laughter and gets up. Merril throws the dice away._

Kortone: I won. I'm having the bed.

Posniak: Bed?

Merril: We got one bed from the crash. Didn't we, Kortone? One bed. Heating, swung mattress, the works - it's that or cosy up against one of these ice delights.

Posniak: What bed?

_Kortone has picked up the arrangement of poles._

Kortone: My bed.

Merril: That thing - it's auto-extensional. Kortone thinks it's his. I'm the one that found it. I carried it salvage.

Kortone: I won the game.

Merril: But I'm taking the bed.

Kortone: No.

_Kortone turns his back, resting the struts down to operate the bed’s power pack. Merril gets up and seizes his shoulder._

Merril: Leave it. I'm not going to kill myself in this cold night.

_Kortone tries to shrug him off._

Merril: It's mine.

_Merril won't give off. Kortone struggles with his grip, drops the bed, turns and seizes Merril then rams him up against one of the stalactites; this loosens nothing but ice and porous rock and Merril kicks out; they struggle in earnest, shifting for position and Posniak reacts, drawing her gun._

Posniak: Leave it.

_She's forced to fire. Vila's hands go over his head. The two men turn to her._

Posniak: What say did I have in the bed?

_Kortone looks at her._

Posniak: _Pointing her gun_ Now who's going to say I don't have the bed on my own.

Merril: No one's having that bed but me. I'm saying it and I'm telling you.

Kortone: I won my place off it in the game.

Posniak: You're telling me you're not giving me the bed?

Kortone: You point that gun at us all night?

Merril: Give off. Give me that bed. His hands go out like a gunfighters. _Like Kortone, he has a snub-nose in his belt._

Posniak: Don't make me.

Vila: If it's causing problems, I'm neutral, shall I -

Posniak: Be quiet, Vila.

Merril: I'm having that bed or nobody's having that bed. Not one of us out front. We're all as good as each other here. We're all due for the cash. Then it's as many beds as we like.

Kortone: Then nobody has the bed.

Merril: Nobody, agreed?

_Posniak puts up her gun._

Merril: You stupid cow. You'd be all right whichever one of us had the bed. In fact, you might -

Posniak: You want to be careful. She's still holding her gun.

Merril: Is that box open yet?

Vila: My fingers are clear now. I can work.

_He scuttles off._

Merril: Then we watch and wait. One night, and then the signal.

Posniak: It's pretty cold.

Merril: Then we huddle together for warmth.

_Kortone sits. Posniak holsters her gun._

_Montage. We see, in rapid succession, the night outside, Vila in his far corner working over the box, Merril cleaning out his finger and toe-nails with an enormous knife, Posniak yawning then looking watchful, Vila working with different tools, more blizzard outside, Kortone threading strip metal together on a bit of wire, Posniak pacing up and down, Vila sitting back with a frown on his face and pulling on his huge gloves, Kortone suspending his construction from the tip of one of the higher stalactites with energy from Posniak's Actium blaster, Vila sitting with his back to the box, the hideous blizzard outside. Over this, there is played up-tempo and elegant classical music, like a 3-V advert for a good make of car. The general sense is of time passing, that we have caught only snatches of the continual activity of these people. The period of montage ends._

_The cavern is as it was before, but as if within a crater the ultra-vi now sits in a circle of blackened thawed rock, and Kortone has manufactured and hung a mobile of scraps of salvage from the crashed launch. He sits slumped against a wall, idly watching what goes on. Posniak is pacing. Merril is looking out at the blizzard. No one has erected the bed._

_Merril pulls his snub-nose and fires several bolts out into the blizzard._

Merril: Take that, you bastards. How do you like it?

_He hurries back inside._

Merril: I'm going crazy in here. No more, no more.

Posniak: Alright, calm down.

Merril: What do you mean, calm down? I'm the richest fucking man in the world. I know what it would take to make you calm down. You know what it is?

Kortone: She means it.

Merril: I tell you, I'm going to do something dangerous. He aims his snub-nose and the ultra-vi, but it is only practice and he doesn't fire.

Kortone: Take the doorstop away from the ultra-vi. If the heat sets the message boost off it'll blow half the cavern in here.

_Posniak carefully picks up the ultra-vi from where it's lying just outside the blackened circle and puts it up on a wall-ledge where we can see it. Vila comes in, wearing his gloves._

Vila: Well, that's it. I've set the probe up. It'll have the top off safely in, oh, another couple of hours. By morning, really.

Merril: Then I can see the money?

Vila: Oh yes, it'll be all their, all ours, all all of ours.

Merril: It had better be, you thief.

Vila: Oh, it will, it will. As soon as the probe's through.

Merril: As soon as the probe's through. As soon as the ship hits orbit. As soon as your sentence's finished. As soon as you've killed him. I don't want to wait. I've had to suffer all my life and nobody's going to do that to me any more - at last I'm getting what's coming. Do you hear me?

Vila: Yes.

Merril: I said, do you hear me?

Vila: Yes, oh yes, I hear you. I hear you.

Kortone: Box isn't open yet, Merril.

Merril: What are you telling me?

Kortone: It's just a matter of lids and hinges.

Vila: Yes, we don't want to go taking the lid off prematurely do we? I mean, we get nothing from blowing our hinges. I mean, perhaps I'll go and look at the box again.

_He hurries off._

Merril: I reckon he's opened the box. I reckon he's hiding the money.

Posniak: Merril.

Merril: All right, all right. I'll just go and check.

_He too goes to look at the box._

Posniak: You don't say much, do you?

Kortone: No.

_Vila comes back._

Vila: He's following me. It's not as if there's anywhere interesting I could take him.

Kortone: It's going to get lonely here over a long night.

Posniak: I thought you didn't say much.

_Merril comes back._

Merril: It's still there. How much longer, thief?

Vila: As soon as the probe - another couple of hours. That's all. Then it'll come off automatically.

Posniak: Then I'm going to get some sleep. I'm exhausted.

Kortone: Then we huddle together for warmth.

Posniak: All of us.

Merril: No one touches that bed. I'll kill anyone who touches that bed.

Vila: I like a man with a sense of proportion.

Posniak: Huddle together.

_They arrange themselves down: Vila, Merril, Posniak, Kortone. She is sandwiched between the two men, shivering. They really are very cold, and it is a sensible thing to do._

Merril: _whispers to Vila_ I've put my gun inside my combinations. Try to touch it and I'll kill you.

Vila: Please.

_They settle down to sleep. Outside, the blizzard grows worse._

_The night passes on._

_It slackens somewhat near dawn. Outside the cavern, across the landscape of mountains and vicious snow the very front of the day's light can be seen, a tinge in the blackness as if the ink were draining out._

_Inside the cavern, Kortone has wakened himself early: his eyes are open. He doesn't stir, but reaches his hand down and feels the tight fabric over Posniak's body and across her thigh, to the holster in which she keeps the Actium Blaster. Posniak stirs and mutters in her sleep. His hand clips back the flap and clasps the butt, then after a pause, whips the gun out. He jams the barrel into the back of her neck, and now he's not asleep at all. Neither any longer is Posniak._

Kortone: Hello, Posniak.

Posniak: _not moving_ What are you doing, Kortone?

Kortone: Be very careful. Don't move at all.

Posniak: You're mad. What are you doing?

Kortone: You're going to remain silent and very still. But perhaps you won't remain silent. No, I don't think you'll stay silent, will you? You're not the silent type. It's been a long time, hasn't it? Tell me it's been a long time.

Posniak: I'll kill you.

_Vila too has come awake by now. He has more sense than to interrupt._

Kortone: I have the gun. Now very carefully reach for the seals on the front of your costume. I want to be able to hear the vacuum clasps release. It's almost like a sigh of satisfaction. Don't you think? I said, don't you think?

_Vila makes a sudden lunge for Merril's gun, where he's stuffed it down his overalls. Merril wakes up suddenly and screams. He claws at Vila's hand and tries to shove it in his mouth, then realises where he is and knocks Vila back; then he swings round and strikes him further across the face, repeatedly. Vila tries to shuffle his body back and roll at the same time, with his hands over his face._

Vila: Not me, no, not me. Kortone! I was trying to stop Kortone! He's gone crazy.

Posniak: Vila!

Kortone: Get him away from me, Merril.

Posniak: I'll see you in Hell before you get anything from me.

_Kortone has seized Posniak by her hair._

Merril: What is it? Where's the money?

_Kortone: now hauling Posniak to her feet_ Easy, Merril, there's a share for everyone. We've got enough money now, enough to go round.

Vila: Leave her alone!

_He makes another dive for Merril's gun, as Kortone is out of reach. Merril tries to knock him away again, but Vila has both hands on the gun and isn't letting go. They struggle, with it waving in the air, and it goes off, bringing down a shower of rock. Posniak is shouting._

Kortone: Keep him quiet, can't you? I said, keep him quiet.

_The gun is knocked against an ice-bound stalagtite and the barrel breaks off. Merril throws the shattered remnant away. Now both his hands are free to deal with Vila and he punches him to the floor, the old one-two._

Merril: Save some for me. I'm next.

Kortone: On your knees.

_Posniak, now screaming, is forced on all fours in front of him. She is facing away from him._

_Vila has scrambled to the ledge with the doorstop. He fumbles with it, then rips his gloves off, finds the switch and points it._

Vila: Leave her alone!

_Nobody pays any attention. Vila discharges the doorstop at Kortone. The directed sub-space boost beam catches him in the small of the back, disintegrating his spine and pummeling the organs and flesh as if they were under a road drill. He collapses in blood. The doorstop power light flares and goes out._

Merril: One shot! That was our only way off-planet.

_Vila turns to run from the madman Merril. He trips on the ice and falls. Merril seizes the expandable bed and, swinging it from the very end, clubs him to death with the power-pack. One blow is enough to crush the back of his skull._

Merril: One shot. I would have been rich. It was all mine.

_There is a sudden crackle from the far corner of the cave and then a small pressure explosion as the top is blown off the money box by Vila's automatic probe._

The box! So, Posniak, it's just you and me.

Posniak: That's right.

_She shoots him with her gun, taken from Kortone's body. She waits to see that he doesn't get up. Then she looks out at the lightening storm._

* * *

A summer’s evening.  
Night waits behind the low cloud as it passes,  
No sound but the clink of two full glasses  
And two dreamers who murmur on the terrace.

Goodbye to politics and communal endeavour;  
Revolution, reform – an easy lie to see through.  
A restaurant cannot hold the hopes of two young lovers.  
Nothing but the passports left to see to.  
Tomorrow will be wealth and ease forever.

* * *

My name is Jenna Stannis, I’m a man.  
I smuggle mangoes from Guam to Saipan.  
My ship has a speed it’s hard to beat.  
Its cheap wooden lean-to sweats in this heat.

From Bangkok I brought gun-parts to Laos.  
My job shows my contempt for the police.  
Fuket, Yokohama, Angkor Wat –  
Ulan Bator is the place I think I’ll stop.

* * *

**AVON IN TENERIFE**  
 _Thoughts of a dry month with a dry martini_

Are you cheesed off, you angry lounger  
     Strolling moodily down the esplanade,  
Hearing cicadas in the sun-drenched arbour,  
    Sipping Manhattans in the shade?

Black leather, atom blaster, space the place for heroes –  
    Sniping at the Federation, suffering the pain.  
Now your foe’s arthritis, but you’ve won through to freedom:  
    Freedom to complain.

Cally died on Terminus, they executed Vila.  
    Safe in the Marimba Bar he downs a bitter gin.  
Around, the laughing sunshine-seekers owe to him their freedom.  
    He never gave in.

* * *

**TARRANT AND HIS BELTBUCKLES**

Tarrant: This is the first one I got. My father gave it to me. I had to kill him ... if you don't mind, I won't talk about that. It was my brother's idea. But he gave it to me before we decided we had to kill him so it's the closest I've got to a paternal blessing, if you like. No, I didn't think you would. Belt buckles are something of a custom on my planet. My father, he didn't want me to be less prominent than the other kids. If you see what I mean. That's not laser melting, it's supposed to be that shape. It's a local design.

You can give it back if you think you've had enough. If you want something to play with, there's this novelty one. It sends out a low buzzing sound if the air has a dense charge of female pheromones, it's supposed to be a growling sound but the batteries don't last forever. And this one glows in the dark. Rather brightly, actually. It's not good if you want to surprise someone. I've had to, in the past.

The next one I got, the one after my father's, I stole it. It wasn't a complicated theft so I won't bother to tell you the details. I admired the colours, I think that's why I took it. I can see you agree. I was more impressed with that sort of thing in those days, myself. But I wore it around instead of the one my father gave me. As you may have guessed, relations between us weren't always what they might have been.

This one I've got on now? Nothing special.

This one is my favourite.

Oh, that one. I don't like to talk about that one. I took it from the body of a dead girl. It was better than taking the memories.

No, alright, you've made your point.

But I felt I wanted something concrete. I couldn't leave her behind entirely. Perhaps you think you could. It was on Alphane Major. I've been back. It wasn't a woman's belt buckle I took away that time. My favourite here I actually won, by - I'm sorry. Whose belt buckle did I take? When I went back? It was a man called Greelor. I'm not going to tell you what he did. He was a torturer. He was the Federation torturer. I expect you know they have one on each planet, it's a corps-level posting in all spearhead bulwark Space Sections. They use them to soften up the local opposition. Anyone in the local opposition who doesn't play along with the corps. Well, I don't need to go on about it. I take it you understand what I mean. I don't need to spell it out. Actually, no, it's not a Federation uniform buckle. It was one of his own. Or one he stole from a local. That's what they do. Actually, that's not all they do. Well, you know what I mean. With what he took I felt justified in taking his belt buckle. With what he took from me. It was from me.

But then, I took more than his belt buckle, didn't I.

I don't have anything else to show for it. I'm sorry. It didn't occur to me that something else would be needed. Well, you can think what you like. Look at the design of the snakes - the belt goes in through here, it's as if they were mating. Rather appropriate, in a way. Don't you think. I don't think he got this belt buckle just anywhere, our Mister Greeler. But then, neither did I. I'll leave you work that out, if you like.

This one's my favourite. It's got a special pouch hidden in the back. You use if for storing poison capsules, if you're so inclined. That's what it was designed for. Or ammunition. But if you're so out of luck that all you've got to fall back on is your belt, then a poison capsule is about the best you can hope for anyway. Don't you think.

Oh. If you must. Come by some other time and I'll show you the rest. My collection's quite large. It's about all that travels with me. I can display it properly here on the Liberator. When I feel like it, I'll get the belt buckles off all the costumes in the hold. There's quite a lot down there, costumes, and most of them have belts. They hold in the material of the tabards and make a waist, you know. Actually, it's a Liberator costume I'm wearing now. There's quite a range of sizes but you have to be careful with the colours. It's the belt buckles I'm interested in. Most of them are made of quite rare plastic. I think one or two are valuable. I have an eye for them. I've been through the manuals. But I'll show you later.

And if you're good I'll maybe also share the secret about Greelor.

Well, it's your decision.

* * *

**THOUGHTS OF AN AGING SPACE-REBEL**

Jenna, you are always in my thoughts.  
Cally, you too.  
I see them foxy-faced run past me,  
Come running back;  
A thousand thousand costumes on this starship –  
I see them both dressed in black.  
All the time.  
Oh my sweet and serious little peaches,  
Can you guess how deep my instinct reaches?

When they cut Gan  
They cut more out from him than simply love of fighting  
And Vila I discard.  
Avon - there's only Avon.  
Does he know I trust him with my life for this rebellion?  
Can he sense my other deep disquiet?

* * *

**TROOPER CHANT**

The star beast in the quasar's heart  
Is not less tremulous than I;  
The comet's tail is not so still  
As when I smell the enemy  
Gagging for my evil touch,  
Death-begging on a bended knee.  
When I lay bare the blaster's snout  
The discharge of atomic phlegm  
Is more acceptable than hate  
More draining than the love of woe.  
Reflected in my vivid eye  
The Rebel staggers punishèd.

Tell me if I am not dead.

* * *

**ON BLAKE'S KNOWLEDGE OF ADVANCED TRIGONOMETRY**

A scientist you were, a citizen –  
    A soldier then you were, a terrorist.  
Early contributor in matter transmission,  
    Later were transmissioned, gun in fist.  
Humans to you are human, women, men.  
    You fought for dignity, for just law and self-rule,  
Learned science of battle, leadership of men;  
    Forgot science of construction, your first tool.

On Gauda Prime a bounty hunter, sad old you  
    Could easily bring down some crimmo's stolen flier,  
        Perhaps an adolescent killer, fit only for the brig.  
He, so ignorant, would be human too.  
    Did you, father-like, draw him nearer to the fire?  
        Did you show him the world's depths, explain some trig?

* * *

**ANNA GRANT**  
 _Anna Livida Plurissima_

Always keep your head high,  
Never waste that ancient loving,  
Never look them in the eye,  
Always keep on moving.

Gone are the days when you had to sell your virginhood -  
Remember that as you try to buy new innocence.  
Avon, even, wanted you in his dominion.  
Now you travel with nothing left to chance,  
To the path that leads to freedom

* * *

**HYDROPONICHRONICON**

A good line of turnips, rotating in stasis fields  
Row on row of spring onions, turning slowly in their stasis  
Two bushels of potatoes time-frozen in a bin  
Another bin of ready-meals, back-lit in an alcove -  
A deep bin, black-plastic-lipped, open so you see the bags  
The flip-dial on the side says "Frozen", pointing to 10.  
A quantity of pasta and a quantity of chopped meat  
No need to preserve the condiments. Vila likes noodles.

* * *

At the foot of the throne of Zeus there are two jars, one containing pig's blood and one containing the blood of five-year-old bulls that were kept in the Elysian Fields of the gods and slaughtered there. And, before they were born, the whole of humanity would pass before Zeus and he would plunge his hand into one or other of the jars and fashion a sausage for them. He took the blood in his hands, cupped like the petals of a lotus flower or the tongue of a lamb lapping water, and he would close his hands and squeeze sausages. To some he gave a sausage of pig's blood, and to some a sausage of bull's blood, and with that sausage each person would pass on into life.

Now it happened one day that Avon passed on his way to be born. Zeus stopped him and said, "Man, because you are destined to be Avon I will give you a sausage that is made of bull's blood and pig's blood together." And he took a handful of each from the vases at his feet and moulded them.

But Avon said to him, "No, I won't accept your sausage. I need nothing from you. That is my strength."

And he passed into life without a sausage.

* * *

**FROM THE PEN OF AVON**

 Anna, I met you again after an erA  
Not, as dreamt, in the next dimensioN  
Not reincarnatioN  
Ah! AnnA

 

G

Rather, ratheR  
As a ghost, AnnA  
Now a past dream, forgotteN  
Tell me the whole of the story. Tell me iT.

  


* * *

**THE REALITY OF LOSS**

Gan died underground  
Surrounded by fairy lights.

They burst out into the alien snow,  
Their comrade cooling below.  
They teleported, snow kicking from their boots;  
They could not know  
How Gan's guts erupted from his flesh  
And his charcoaled legs were lasered into jello.

To Vila he was protector, father, confessor perhaps,  
To Avon a lump merely,  
To Blake the sort of solid fellow  
His revolution was builded upon,  
To Jenna a comrade she loved dearly.  
And their characters he in turn knew  
As one knows the house where one is born,  
Except for the alien in the crew.  
Who knew her?

He, whose life was turned wrong, upside-down,  
From mens’ haberdasher to revolutionary,  
Thought that he ran with rebels in a latter-day waking dream  
As if he’d drunk mead in the halls of Faery.

Only Cally heard his death-scream.

* * *

**ON BOARD A REGENERATING STARSHIP**

On board the Liberator  
Cocaine and early cigarettes  
Amuse the blood-bespattered crew,  
Distract them from obscene regrets.  
Absinthe, and quantities of BEER  
Make peace between the distant stars  
And Vila satisfies his fill  
Within the ever-flowing bar.  
Sex-machines, amphetamines,  
A golden cornucopia  
Wash away the fear and rage,  
Keep space rebellion up to par.

* * *

**LIBERATOR FLOATING IN SPACE; THE DESERTED TELEPORT**

Liberator floating in space,  
The teleport deserted.  
No feet run down the anxious corridors,  
No breath disturbs the galliards of silver clothes,  
Wardrobes of scarlet catsuits, leathercompressing chests,  
The treasure rooms, the hydroponics unit,  
Nor the underdecorated quarters.  
It hangs in space.

The ship was called "Rickartusketlebra"  
Which means "The Running Sore";  
In the space language of its weird blue builders,  
And Zen intoned, "G'zarrarr gazal chop";  
Which meaning you can guess, my happy readers.  
They stuffed it with all good things, treasures, clothes,  
Autodestruct emotivar defendorants  
And a Mark Seven forcewall  
And rode it in to many stunning battles  
For use in quashing angry populations,  
And for mass taxation through oppressive government.  
Then near Rigel came the crunch,  
Damage too much,  
On board all flesh was crucified. The blue  
Builders died upon their ship. Waiting now  
For a master’s hand, the teleport deserted,  
It hangs in space.

* * *

**DAYNA'S SONG**

See me  
See me dance  
Look on me, women of Earth

I am  
Death in the night  
I breathe  
Ardour and spite  
I come  
From the left and the right  
And above  
And below  
I enfold you

There is no escape  
When I fix on you  
When I know your name  
No one's to blame  
No one to point to  
No one but me to hate

I am  
Pride and belonging  
Secure in  
Action and knowledge  
Superb in  
Self-choice and self-longing  
I have chosen my way  
You need not reproach me  
I take what I may

Run while you can  
Dayna is living  
Follow the herd  
Life is absurd  
And my business is killing  
You have no elan

See me  
Women of Earth  
Look on me dance

* * *

Avon licks his matted side  
The wild boar hoary on the heath  
After moonrise he must hide  
Servalan has wicked teeth

* * *

Light and airy, like a fairy  
Cally spins a pirouette  
Sweet breaths of mind in starlight twined  
She cannot see the future yet

* * *

Avon licks thick lips  
He peels another plum  
Tarrant licks thin lips  
Who'll be quicker when the bad times come?

* * *

**TARRANT**

It is a most uncommon man  
Can glue a perfect paper fan  
Or show his future heirs the way  
To rafia or macrame

* * *

**AVON IN ASPIC**

Change, bizarre man.  
Change your boots and your clothes.  
Change your ideas and those  
Bizarre attitudes you strike when nailed to the spot.  
Change your wretched face, stuck between immobility and grin.  
Change your gravid waistline and return to being thin,  
Back to when you enjoyed life a lot.  
You were not always Blake’s blind fan.

You were a likely man.  
Change your fixation on a bygone whore.  
Her brother was a good man, get to know him more.  
Who made you a space rebel, with such fixed ideas?  
Change, find a future, find some pleasure, ditch those fears –  
Or you will stop.

* * *

**DER TODTENS DES VILAS**

_THE DEATH OF VILA_

_A Leaving from the Liberator  
All the News that's Fit to Print_

Having escaped from the events on Gouda Primula, Vila has set up in private practice.

Vila: And so I have it. Here I am a success, seated upon my high throne of onyx, eating mushrooms and wild strawberries from precious dishes of smooth alabaster. Lo, the scent of hyacinth is in the airy corridors of my palace and I walk as surrounded by the laughter of a thousand maidens. Lo, I drink wine sweeter than the eyes of peacocks and idle away the heavy afternoons, where here on Altis the sun is heavy in the sky and the lily bows her head in perspiration, with hashish-and-soma gel fed to me with spoons out of caskets of gold with lids encrusted over by amethyst and pearl and pictures in enamel of old heroes. And it is golden-skinned women who bear and present the caskets and long limbs they have and dark eyes that I see in my mind long after I have taken my hashish, and the afternoons are longer for my memory of those eyes and the dreams of the hashish more full in my bones and the long heat more comfortable on my limbs. And when in the cool of the purple evening I awaken again, then the maids come to me and this time they do not bear their caskets of gold and pearl and amethyst and enamel, but dance in light robes of chiffon and shake their bangles, and then they cease to dance and we are both well pleased.

Enter five of the serving-maidens of King Vila. They are beautiful but in his presence demure, and advance with bowed heads. As they walk, the split skirts of their light dresses swish with their passage, revealing the length of their legs even up to the upper thigh. Their arms are bare.

Chief Serving Maid:  
King Vila  
Night is upon us.  
The Owl screeches on his perch.  
The Roebuck is restless within his thicket.  
Fear is on us for the actions of the Gods  
And their enmity against one so great.  
We are restless in our sleep.

Vila:  
The Gods are good.  
Piety is rewarded by them.  
But that does not mean I am not at risk.  
The Gods are driven by forces which our computers cannot understand.  
They kill those they love  
And take away from those they have most need to reward  
But I do not think it is from malice  
Nor from pleasure. Though many  
Accuse them of it.  
That is what I am afraid of.  
I am afraid of the love of the Gods  
For it gets me nothing but their attention  
And with it comes the attention  
Of their hungry poor relation Fate.  
I am haunted by a beast.

Chief Serving Maid:  
King Vila  
What is this beast.

Vila:  
I may not tell you that.

Chief Serving Maid:  
We are your people  
And happy at your command.  
Your embrace to us is as the roaring of fire  
And your kisses the ice of the sea  
Your eyes the shining of Sol in the sky  
Your hips the shoulders of the serpent.  
Each one of us would die  
In return for the pleasure you have given.

Vila:  
This is as it should be.  
I am Restant Vila, king, thief and master.  
I have the power of life and death  
Over my people, and to them dispose  
As to me do but the Immortals. Ah, Kathleen  
Kathleen, when again will I drink the magic of your eyes?  
Lonely on my throne I am. I have  
Storehouses piled high with  
Ivory and spice  
And without you it is all as  
The trail of a comet  
Which shines but does not warm.

_Enter the head guard, hard with his war-shield._

Head Guard: Great king!

Vila: Speak. I will answer.

Head Guard:  
I am the delegate of your legions of war.  
I bring the word of the troops.  
Sire, outside the palace  
Is the beast.  
It is calling for you.  
It has not eaten.  
It wants you by name.  
We would lay down our lives for you.  
But we are powerless against the beast.

Vila:  
It is as I expected. And now, when I come to the moment, I cannot say that I find it unwelcome. Yes, it is not what I would have wanted, there is much to do, much of my hashish to consume, many great plans to undertake and build. And yet I cannot say that within me the coming of the beast is unwelcome. That is very peculiar. What is it, at heart, that I really wanted? I wonder.

There is no time left to find out.  
Oh my servants  
You who have pampered me  
You who have let me use you  
And never complained of the usage  
Because the rewards more than compared  
To the misery of use  
Oh my opalescent, kohl-eyed, secret smiling women  
Fetch me one last time my box of hashish  
But do not fetch the golden box  
The solid ornate casket with the encrustation of pearl  
And of amethyst and cunningly painted enamel  
Fetch me the dark container  
The solid black box, the swart lidded joy  
The potent carrier of eternal dreams  
That stands on its pedestal in the Courtyard of Unrecoverable Dreams  
Fetch me that plain box of hashish  
Which none may open but I  
And then only now, as when I have sorest need.

Chief Serving Girl:  
It shall be  
As you commanded.

Head Guard:  
When the beast came  
There was the rushing of a mighty wind.  
The trees were bare and the cliffs  
Collapsed at the seas' shores.  
There was a blight upon the sun.  
We in our squadrons took to space  
And spread out our planet net  
And opened the solar wings  
Which are too bright to approach  
And the vacuum was seized with the burning of lasers  
And the asteroids were laid waste  
And the energies of several suns were wasted  
In the horror of our weapons  
But it was all of no avail against the beast.

Chief Serving Girl:  
Oh mighty Vila  
Here is your secret black box.

Vila:  
Give it to me.  
Ah.

Chief Serving Girl:  
The beast is at the gates.

Vila:  
Too late: I've taken poison.

Chief Serving Girl:  
Poisoned! Arsenic in hashish!  
There was death in that casket.  
It was the box of knowledge of life and death.

_Vila dies._

Head Guard:  
He was our king and our master  
And our locksmith and our thief.  
To serve a man superior to yourself  
Is to avoid your responsibilities  
Because you can pass on your doubts  
To a higher cause.  
It is not yourself that needs to find the excuses  
It is alright if you cannot see the final aim.  
If he was not the best of us all  
Then I do not want to know about it.  
He is dead and has joined the gods  
And he was my king.

Chief Serving Girl:  
That which we what thought would might have happened  
Did not happen whatly as that to that which we might have thought.  
And that which might be of begotten of the having of the happened  
Happened what thusly might of what it did in fact.  
What thus things may only the Gods may be knowing  
What that we are not.

* * *

**BLOOD ON AVON'S TROUSERS**  
 _Mother's gone to Hartlepool. I think it's for good._

My beefburgers are thick with fat  
Like hair greasy with lanolin.  
Baked beans come crammed with soft shallots:  
They stink when opened from the tin.

Buckled up against the night  
AVON tosses his great mane.  
His sores are peeling with the blight  
His skin is peeling with the mange.

CALLY sees double with the gin.  
JENNA shot herself alone.  
They crack'd Zen ope and found within  
A rag, a hank of hair, a bone.

Great cracks appeared in Avon's thigh  
His rotting gonads split and fell.  
He roars against his enemy.  
He can't see it's himself as well.

Well now, I breathe the foetid wind  
Well now, I see the stars  
And you will see my sickly grin  
But not my scars.

* * *

And when Avon died,  
Neatly through his flesh they shot a dozen bullets –  
Nearly caught each other in the foot – what rich irony! –  
And his body died instantly.

Granted, though, the brain outlives the body,  
Raiding its last cells for oxygen as its trunk collapsed beneath it,  
As it saw its blood leak out between the Federation boots.  
Now did they kick the corpse.  
Though the body, the bullet-ridden body, now felt nothing.

* * *

**THE LEGEND OF THE GREASE AND THE PERFUME**

A long time ago at the beginning of Time in 1980 the God Zeus had two jars. In one he kept grease but in the other he kept his perfume. One day he took some perfume and sprinkled it on the ground and it fell upon the Human League, who became womanish and attracted to womanish things. But the grease he dropped upon Alvin Stardust. And from then on Alvin Stardust was full of testosterone.

* * *

  **KNOWN TRUE ORIGINS**

   
Woden  
|  
Lloyd George  
|  
Bodie  
|  
Richard the Panther  
|  
Wolf Avon  
|  
Lord Avon  
|  
Rich Avon  
|  
Avon the Cougar  
|  
Haggis Avon, the "Great Chieftain"  
|  
King Avon  
|  
Death Avon  
|  
Stratford Avon  
|  
Rogue Avon  
|  
Keir Avon

 

 

  
From Keir Avon to the King of the Gods, fourteen generations. From the King of the Gods to the discovery of space travel, fourteen generations. From the discovery of space travel to the creation of the Universe, fourteen by fourteen generations. The existence of the Universe fourteen by fourteen generations plus four times fourteen generations. The destroyer of the universe, information unknown.

  
Woden  
|  
Lloyd George  
|  
Doyle  
|  
Boney M  
|  
Lion-O  
|  
King Tarrant  
|  
Davey Tarrant  
|  
Leroy Tarrant  
|  
Snifter Tarrant  
|  
Tarrant Tarrant  
|  
Roj Tarrant  
_______|_______  
|                           |  
Del Tarrant             Deeta Tarrant  
                              |  
                             Harry the Dish

  
He took the left hand path.

  
Orac  
|  
Orac  
|  
Orac

  
Servalan was born by Night off the King of the Vampires. She was carried off by the servants of Night and suckled on blood from the underbelly of the Great Star Wolf on the moon Hyperion. Whenever a comet passed, the winged Servants of Night would hold her head in its cold trail to toughen her and prepare her for greatness. But her heart they cut out and cast into the sun.

Blake was born from human parents. They eloped together and were visited by the angel Hadriel who promised them one of the kingdoms of earth but they refused. They escaped to Wales and brought up their son to milk the goats and respect truth and justice. The Federation converted the valley where they had lived in rural idyll into a multi-storey for antigravs and they found themselves once more in city surroundings; oppressed by her environment, Blake's mother became an epileptic and was subject to visions: she saw her son in a silver jump-suit carrying an enormous Stars And Stripes to the top of Everest, she saw him with a crown on his head seated on the Throne of All the World and she saw him with horns and wings, always leading people to freedom; and she saw him unshaven, half-forgotten, shot in the back by Avon on Gouty Prunes. Before she died, she passed on to him the only thing her father had given her: a small piece of Arthur's throne on an amulet, and he wore it round his neck ever after. Then he left for university, where he first contacted the resistance to Federation rule. The rest is well documented.

  
Gan  
|  
Gan

Frigg  
|  
Peter Cook  
|  
Sally  
|  
She-Ra, Princess of Power  
|  
Queen of Sheba  
|  
Star Lucy  
|  
Diamond Lucy  
|  
Jeanie  
|  
Samantha  
|  
Tabitha  
|  
Barbara Bain  
|  
Sif  
|  
Tarantella  
|  
Cally

Freya  
|  
Cilla Black  
|  
Princess Diana  
|  
Queen Gorgeous  
|  
Juno the Tasty  
|  
Charlotte the Beautiful  
|  
Liza the Ace  
|  
Wilma Deering  
|  
Stella Artois  
|  
Tabitha Jute  
|  
Solaria  
|  
Angel Face  
|  
Sir Roger de Coverley  
|  
Jenna

* * *

**CAST LIST**

Avon - Richard Wagner  
Blake - Paul Michael Glazer  
Gan - Brian Dennehy  
Jenna - Farrah Fawcett  
Vila - Dean Stockwell  
Servalan - Jane Seymour  
Travis - Armand Assante/David Carradine  
Trellis - George Hamilton  
Tarrant - Elliot Gould  
Dayna - Oprah Winfrey  
Soolin - Meg Ryan  
Cally - Calista Flockheart  
Voices of Zen/Orac - Casey Kasem


End file.
